Open Cable chain set for HICTOP 3DP-11 by Klotzmando

Last crawled date: 2 years, 12 months ago

I had a problem with the wire mess on my new HICTOP and wanted a cable chain. Since I am always making changes to my printers I have to have an open chain and the ones that were presented here did not have an open side on the links. I prefer open links because you don't have to try an fish your cables in or out, you simply break the chain one link at a time and reassemble it around the cable.
So I redesigned the terminating mounts from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1357884 mounting the CableChain_XCarriage a little lower and opening up the side. I redid the Cable Chain_XStepper again to make it open and added a chain mount to the back incase I figure out how to transition to a chain that will connecto to the computer board.
Finally, I took the cable chain from http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:511938 resized to fit the end mounts and group them into a set of 4 each ( your certainly will need more than one and extras come in handy)
So here you go.
Nov 2, 2016:
After some hours on the printer, I found I did not like the way the cable behaved at the X-Motor mount. I watched it for a while and realize I simply needed to make a simple change to get the cable to fold correctly. I had to make the chain end pointed so the links would fold back on the chain and therefore lay flatter. While I was at it I decided to also add a set of gate on the open side like I did for the X head mount.
Nov 13, 2016
After printing with the updated X-Motor Mount I kept noticing a POPing sound. I finally tracked this down to the shape of the point. I have converted this to a more filleted shape to make the transition easier. This form works much better. I have removed the V2 and update the original to avoid confusion. Also, I found that the chain rubbed against the lead screw when the X-head was all the way to the left. The fix for this is to simply invert the first link from the head. (The angle would normally be toward the back, except for the first link on the X-Head.
Dec 12, 2016
I was not entirely happy with the extruder/x carriage mount or the X-stepper motor mount. Some of the wires were flexing too much and I was worried that they may experience excessive strain because of it. Also, I was inspired by a YouTube video I saw, sorry I can't remember how to find it, where the circuit board case had a connector for a cable chain. So I have added support for a chain from the X-stepper motor to the circuit board case.
Finally, I redesigned the extruder/x-carriage mount to have a slot for the SN04 sensor cable and lowered the whole mount by about 8mm. This means that the screw holes for the mount are now part of the cable channel, but I added enough material to the channel to allow the screw heads to be fully counter-sunk.
Dec 13, 2016
Well, the testing of the electronics box went faster than expected so I have added it to this project. The project is now complete.
UPDATE Feb 27, 2017:
I have modified the case bottom to better handle the display cables, the USB jack and cable entry points. This version has all the entry points at the level of the board.
I also reduced the size of the cable chain mount on the top so you could use the same case with out the cable chain if you wish.